Professor
Birger Sevaldsen
Can Designers Design Anything?
Birger Sevaldson
In the last years there has been a double movement in the field
of design. On one side, design has diverged into ever new are-
as and specialities; on the other, design has converged into a
generic field where special subdomains of design blend into
each other and boundaries are blurred. This double action is
best seen in the expansion of design. Designers are moving into
ever new areas. This happens as more or less defined models
from design are adapted into new fields and as designers take
on almost any challenge. For example, design thinking has long
made its way into management and planning and designers are
moving into new fields such as policy and organisation design.
Though these fields are not new in themselves they have not
been an arena for design thinking or designing as such yet.
This thriving of design has not unexpectedly provoked.
Both design thinking and especially its simplified and brand-
ed version has been heavily attacked. There is also a growing
irritation about the willingness and confidence of designers
moving into new fields and claiming they can design any-
thing. Some of this criticism comes from design scholars,
most of them without a design background. Design theory
and research is peculiar in the sense that it is densely pop-
ulated with non-designers. Some integrate well and bring
valuable perspectives to design research, while others never
understand the features of design and use the field to establish
themselves as authorities in design theory and defend their
territories. It is from that side that the criticismhas been loud-
est. On the other side some professors and professionals with
a design background claim that designers can design anything.
Design has general features that are successfully applicable in
any case, issue or field.
Despite the division into the two positions the question is not
easily answered. It actually has many aspects and this essay will
only polemically scratch its surface.
